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A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

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Wasilla

Wasilla is the place where I have lived for the past 29 years - sort of. The house in which my wife and I raised our family sits here, but I have made my rather odd career as a different sort of photojournalist by continually wandering off to other places to photograph people and gather information, which I have then put together in various publications that have served the Alaska Native Eskimo, Indian and Aleut communities.

Although I did not have a great of free time to devote to this rather strange community, named after a Tanaina Athabascan Indian chief who knew Wasilla in the way that I so impossibly long to, I have still documented it regularly over the past quarter-century plus. In the early days, my Wasilla photographs focused mostly upon my children and the events they participated in - baseball, football, figure skating, hockey, frog catching, fire cracker detonation, Fourth of July parade - that sort of thing. 

In 2002, I purchased my first digital camera and then, whenever I was home, I began to photograph Wasilla upon a daily basis, but not in a conventional way. These were grab shots - whatever caught my eye as I took my many long walks or drove through the town, shooting through the car window at people and scenes that appeared and disappeared before I could even focus and compose in the traditional photographic way.

Thus, the Wasilla portion of this blog will be devoted both to the images that I take as I wander about and those that I have taken in the past. Despite the odd, random, nature of the images, I believe they communicate something powerful about this town that I have never seen expressed anywhere else. 

Wasilla is a sprawling community that has been slapped down hodge-podge upon what was so recently wilderness of the most exquisite beauty. In its design, it is deliberately anti-zoned, anti-planned. In the building of Wasilla, the desire to make a buck has trumped aesthetics and all other considerations. This town, built in the midst of exquisite beauty, has largely become an unsightly, unattractive, mess of urban sprawl. Largely because of this, it often seems to me that Wasilla is a community with no sense of community, a town devoid of town soul.

Yet - Wasilla is my home and if I am lucky it will be until I grow old and die. Despite its horrific failings, it is still made of the stuff of any small city: people; moms and dads, grammas and grampas, teens, children, churches, bars, professionals, laborers, soldiers, missionaries, artists, athletes, geniuses, do-gooders, hoodlums, the wealthy, the homeless, the rational and logical, the slightly insane and the wholly insane - and, yes, as is now obvious to the whole world, politicians, too.

So perhaps, if one were to search hard enough, it might just be possible to find a sense of community here, and a town soul. So, using my skills as a photojournalist and a writer, I hope to do just that. If this place has a sense of community, I will find it. If there is a town soul to Wasilla, I will document it. I won't compete with the newspapers. Hell no! But as time and income allow, it will be fun to wander into the places where the folks described above gather, and then put what I find on this blog.

 

by 300...

Anywhere within a 300 mile radius of Wasilla. This encompasses perhaps the most wild, dramatic, gorgeous, beautiful section of land and sea to be found in any comparable space anywhere on Earth. I can never explore it all, but I will do the best that I can, and will here share what I find and experience with you.  

and then some...

Anywhere else in the world that I happen to get to, such as Point Lay, Alaska; Missoula, Montana; Serenki, Chukotka, Russia; or Bangalore, India. Perhaps even Lagos, Nigeria. I have both a desire and scheme to get me there. It is a long shot. We shall see if I succeed.

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Tuesday
Apr142009

Today, Part B: A moon rises over the bank of the Little Susitna River

DateTuesday, April 14, 2009 at 11:51PM

Actually, this is from what was today, two year's ago to the date. I had taken Margie on a drive across the Little Su, then turned around and headed back. Here's what I figure happened: the bare-assed guy with the big grin told his friends something like, "here comes a middle-aged couple in a car. I'll moon them and shock the hell out of them."

So he mooned us and just like that, because I am good at this kind of thing, I raised my camera and shot his bare ass, thus preserving the moment so that people from now until the end of photographic time can look upon the image and marvel. They will say, "this is what happened in Wasilla, Alaska, on April 14, 2007."

They will know that, whatever miserable condition the city is in by then, however crowded and laid to waste it might be, once, Wasilla, Alaska, was a place of exquisite beauty, populated by wonderfully handsome people.

A little more detail from the top picture. There is enough resolution in the original image that I could show even more detail of this tailless tail, but this is enough.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment4 Comments |
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Reader Comments (4)

Thanks for the laugh!!

April 15, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMissSunshine

Maybe on one of these walks you take you can take a pic of good ol' 645 Sarahs Way? My old house I have not seen in many moons.

April 15, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDanny Elmore

That is some quality of life imagery for the people who may or may not know a bit of Wasilla, Alaska. The town for freedom!

April 15, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterCharlie

Thanks, all!

I will try to remember to do that, Danny.

April 15, 2009 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

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